Tales of x Mega Man X
by Nu Mou Sage
Summary: Following the events of Project X Zone, the worlds of the Tales and Mega Man X series collide as a new unknown power is at work, causing their realities to affect one another. Multiple Tales worlds will be involved in due time.
1. Prologue I

Author's Note: Hey all, it's Nu Mou Sage, reemerging in the fan fiction circle after years of silence. I'm sorry to say this isn't my Digimon x Code Lyoko story _Tale of Two Computerized Worlds_. Digimon has lost some of its luster after the last few seasons and feels less impressive than it did in its golden days. In addition, I have not finished watching Code Lyoko, which I intend to complete at some point, though I'm not sure when or how exactly. I've moved on to newer ideas and this one is largely inspired from the recent and awesome _Project X Zone_, a fantastic crossover RPG that is just oozing with fanservice. You'll need to have some familiarity with that game's story and also have knowledge when it comes to the _Tales of_ and _Mega Man X_ games if you want to read this. Without further ado, I introduce the first chapter of _Tales of_ _x Mega Man X_ (that reads _Tales of Cross Mega Man X_ in case you were wondering).

Prologue I: "Our Roads Clash Again"

**Terca Lumireis, the world of **_**Tales of Vesperia**_**, in the Erealumen Crystallands...**

"Sir, we've discovered something!" A knight yelled to his commanding officer as the survey team continued to unearth their strange discovery.

"What have you located?"

"I thought it was a blastia at first glance, but looking at it again, it's not like any blastia I've ever seen before."

The commanding officer climbed down into the excavation pit and took note of the object for himself. Examining it, the item indeed resembled no blastia he had ever seen the likes of before. It was not any make of Hermes model nor it was one that could conveniently fit in one's pocket. Satisfied with his present understanding of it, he turned to another of the knights.

"Inform Captain Scifo at once! Tell him to bring Rita Mordio with him."

"Sir!" The knight saluted before heading off. The officer looked back at it and wondered what indeed it was that his team had found.

Within the hour, Captain Flynn Scifo of the Imperial Knights and Rita of Brave Vesperia arrived at the survey spot in the Erealumen Crystallands at the behest of the survey team.

"Captain, Miss Mordio. Knight Officer Joshua Krim, at your service." The commanding officer saluted to them.

"What did you need us to look at? Your messenger claimed the object in question is not a blastia in any way shape or form." Flynn said with his usual friendly voice.

"Yes Captain. It is...difficult to describe. It resembles one of the crystals here in the cavern, but it's also different in a number of ways. We were hoping Miss Mordio would give us her opinion on the object."

"Is that all right with you, Rita?" The blonde-haired knight captain turned to the fifteen year old genius mage of Aspio.

"Yeah sure, I don't have any other projects I'm currently working on at the moment anyway. I don't mind having a look at it." Her tone was that of one who was nonplussed and possibly bored. Following the events of the Adephagos being defeated, she had been working day and night on various smaller projects. Of course, given her dedication to such things, she had finished them with little difficulty and needed something new to stimulate her intellect.

"Very well, this way." He guided the two of them to the excavation pit, and after they had all climbed down into its depths, he showed them the mysterious object. By that time, the team had been able to clear away more of the dirt and rocks surrounding the object, leaving a slightly more clear view to observers.

For a full two minutes, Flynn and Rita were in absolute awe of it. The large object was indeed like nothing they had ever laid eyes on. While it certainly outwardly resembled one of the cavern's lavender-blue crystals, it also had features not like anything seen before. Unlike the rest of the structures, the object was almost like a coffin in its shape and form. Encased within the crystal coffin itself was a round, spherical metallic device. Its top hemisphere was midnight blue while its lower hemisphere was white, and its center was dominated by a red "eye" where its equator would be if the object was a globe, but it wasn't like any model of their planet Flynn and Rita had ever seen before. The eye looked to be some sort of glass orb with a strange reflection that defied the basic rules of lighting.

"Just _what_ is this?" Rita said, completely and utterly astonished for the umpteenth time in her life. In the past, things like witnessing Estelle's mystic arte for the first time or the descent of Adephagos made her drop her jaw. This was another shocker to add to her list of surprises.

"For some reason, something about its design seems oddly familiar to me. Where have I seen it?" Flynn mused aloud as he put his hand to his chin in thought. He couldn't shake the feeling he had seen such a device before from somewhere.

"You seriously have seen something like this before?" Rita turned to him and made her staple incredulous face, the expression she usually put on when she was having a great deal of trouble believing a person.

"Yes, but I can't remember from where." Flynn kept pondering and still couldn't come up with an answer.

"It's not like any of the machines in Ghasfarost and its not like anything in Tarqaron either. It seems...ahead of even those in its design." The genius mage of Aspio was honestly stumped. She couldn't even begin to guess what the object was, let alone what it was intended for. She wanted to immediately start examining it and figuring out just what it was exactly the survey team had found.

"The object seems to be quite large and, judging from its indent, heavy too. It would be difficult to move out of the cavern without some kind of additional manpower. Do we have any troops in reserve at the castle, Captain?"

"I've sent out several platoons on reconnaissance missions. Taking it back to Zaphias would be easy with Ba'ul's help, but getting it out of the cavern is a different story."

"Perhaps we could..." Before Joshua Krim could finish his suggestion, Rita let out a startled cry and alerted everyone's attention to her.

"Rita, what happened?" Flynn asked as he went to her side.

"I don't know! I just bent down to get a closer look at it and it started reacting. I didn't touch it or anything!" She exclaimed.

The spherical object in the coffin-like crystal began emitting a strange low humming sound, which quickly amplified to a whirring like that of a windmill's blades spinning at two hundred miles per hour. The glass eye on the center of the sphere seemed to be looking at the two of them, as if it were alive. In just that instant, white light began to emanate from the crystal itself, slowly growing in brightness until it was absolutely blinding to everyone in the cavern.

"What's it doing?!" One of the knights exclaimed. The light grew so gigantic in width that it encompassed the cavern and its occupants. When the grand illumination cleared, everyone was either flat on their back or collapsed to their knees, groaning from the shock. That is, everyone except for those missing.

"Captain Scifo! Miss Mordio! Where are they?" Joshua yelled. "Captain! Miss Mordio!" Turning around, he looked frantically for them...and no trace of them could be found. They had vanished completely.

**Earth, the year 21XX, Abel City...**

Alia's computer console suddenly sparked to life as it detected a large energy reading in the Energen Mines where Crystal Snail had once caused trouble back during the second Maverick uprising. Layer and Pallette took notice of the reading as well and were equally as surprised as their colleague.

"What is this? A sudden spike of power in the Energen Mine? How can that be? And this reading, it's too high for any normal deposit of crystals." Alia said as she quickly analyzed the signal.

"What I find strange is why there's any activity there at all. That place was shut down after X defeated Crystal Snail, so why are we suddenly picking up a huge reading like this? It's completely ridiculous that energen could produce numbers in this range." Layer said in her usual calm and cool tone.

"I remember Dr. Cain saying the energen that Tunnel Rhino had been digging up during the Doppler Maverick incident could power a city for an entire year. The energy in this reading could make the whole planet run for ten years without rest!" Pallette exclaimed.

"We should send someone to check it out. This may not have anything to do with any known current problems, but maybe someone has figured out how to harness energen to even more insane levels than Doppler had." Alia remarked.

"And this someone may not have the best intentions in mind for it." Layer said, as she put out an APB to all Maverick Hunters in the vicinity of the mining area.

"Maverick Hunter Base, this is X. I'm heading to the area now with Zero. This has me worried." The reply came in half a minute as the familiar voice of the legendary blue armored hero came in loud and clear over the channel. The navigators looked to each other, knowing this particular incident was personal for him. The confrontation with Crystal Snail was very painful for him, in a number of ways.

"Understood. Just in case, we'll send backup to your location. We currently haven't identified any possible causes for this strange upsurge of energy." Alia responded.

"Affirmative." Zero, the legendary S-rank Maverick Hunter, said as the communication ended.

**Energen Crystal Mine...**

Parking their Ride Chasers just outside the entrance, the two Maverick Hunters entered the closed off area with their scanners on full alert. X had pondered just what, or even who, could trigger such a massive scale of energy. The energen within the place itself could only produce energy that was standard operation capacity; there was no possible way for it to be as powerful as Pallette described. As he and Zero wandered further in past the numerous crystallized walls and structures around them, he couldn't help but think back to that unfortunate battle with Crystal Snail. It was a battle that never left his memory, for it was one of many personal scars he carried in his heart.

The snail-based Reploid was a tormented soul, bitter about his own physical appearance, thinking he was nothing but an ugly creature. Of particular note during that incident, Snail was infatuated with the Magna Quartz, a small spherical machine encased in a massive energen quartz crystal. He caressed and worshipped it, calling it the very symbol of eternal beauty, and thought that even an "ugly thing" such as himself could one day achieve such radiance. When X had destroyed Magna Quartz due to its hostile actions, Crystal Snail was beside himself with anguish and suffering. He had intended to utterly annihilate X, to make him understand the agony he felt when he lost his precious friend. The Maverick Hunter did understand, but he was unable to tell Snail due to having been frozen by his opponent's Crystal Hunter, a devious weapon that can both literally freeze a target as well as cause an entire area's functional activity to slow down to, appropriately enough, a snail's pace.

"We've got company." Zero said calmly, snapping X back to the present. There was no time for him to reminisce now. Pointing his X-Buster at a number of enemies, he knew he had to fight once again.

"There are more than I thought there'd be." X muttered. The number of enemies was indeed a bit excessive, numbering to over fifty in just the one room they were in currently. This seemed like it could very well be a case of a Maverick calling the shots. Within seconds, energy shots were exchanged between both sides, resulting in immediate deaths on the enemy side. As robots went down, more began scrambling into the room from further in, replacing their fallen comrades.

"Damn, this is endless! We need to cut off all of this hydra's heads now!" Zero swore. As his attention was focused on the battle in front of him, he did not have time to react to the sudden slashing strike from behind. The S-rank Maverick Hunter let out a pained grunt as X turned to aim his Buster at a new threat...and was taken aback at the sight of the newcomer.

"Speaking of hydras..." X said in a low voice that betrayed his poker face. "You're Amblygonite Hydra, from the 6th Naval Unit!" Towering massively over the Maverick Hunter was a Reploid based on the mythical hydra of Greek myth. His body was massive in size to accommodate his many heads.

"Indeed we are, Maverick Hunter X!" The powerful seven-headed Reploid declared sibilantly. "So have you come to put an end to our Energen mining? What's the problem?" His voice was laced with both venom and sarcasm as each of his various heads snapped in anger at X.

"Yeah, what's the problem?!" This was echoed by Hydra's second head, who seemed tense and high strung.

"Mining operation? Weren't you discharged from the naval unit and put on probation? What are you doing here, Hydra?!"

"We were, but we got bored with our permanent 'shore leave', so we did some research in our spare time and figured if we wanted to build a powerful navy of our own, we'd need a ton of energy...and what better place than Energen central!" The third head rasped almost happily.

"But if you damn Maverick Hunters get in the way, there's no way in hell we'll be able to finish our little project!" This from the fourth head, who seemed quite angry.

"So it's time for you two to go!" The fifth head screamed out insanely as it managed to wrap itself around X and hoist him up.

"Maybe we can use their bodies for the ship's bow! What do you think, Seven?"

"I don't care Six, let's just suck out their energy first and then annihilate them." The seventh head was surprisingly the only calm, rational one, but had no more love for the Maverick Hunters than his brethren did. He just preferred to get things done without too much fanfare.

When the enemy Reploid's seven heads' numerous and deadly fangs were about to sink deeply into X, something quickly shot along the ground toward him. Zero caught sight of it with his advanced optics for barely half a second; it was a blue-colored vacuum wave that furiously shredded the rocky floor behind it as it collided into Amblygonite's leg and knocked him aside, freeing X from his grip.

"That technique. Wasn't that..." Zero steadied himself with his Z-Saber.

"Demon Fang!" A voice shouted as another wave came shooting along, causing many of the enemy units to dodge out of its way to avoid getting hit. One lone human came running into the room from the opening all the hostiles had been using to swarm in. He was someone the Maverick Hunters were quite familiar with; their memories of their multidimensional journey had not left their minds.

"X, Zero, are you two okay?" The familiar face cropped with blonde hair said as he stood confidently with them, sword drawn and shield readied.

_Flynn Scifo, of the Imperial Knights?!_ X said to himself, wondering just what was going on.

"Heh, is it the Portalstone again?" Zero asked to no one in particular as he slowly rose to his feet.

To be continued...

Well everyone, hope you've enjoyed the first prologue so far. Just to note a few things:

_Tales of Vesperia_ is not the only Tales game I plan to draw characters from, but they will be first on the list due to some of the cast being involved in _Project X Zone_.

Amblygonite Hydra is named for amblygonite, a mineral that is a mix of sodium and lithium; the play on words here is that lithium carbonate is used in treating manic depression and bipolar disorders, which ties in with Hydra's heads and their varying personalities.

Hydra speaks in a distinct first person style, kind of like a hive mind similar to Venom due to his numerous heads being part of one body.

The 6th Naval Unit is the same unit Bubble Crab and Wheel Gator were in back in _Mega Man X2._


	2. Prologue II

Author's Note: Whew, I have to say, this took longer to finish due to a number of complications that have been going on throughout February. I don't want to make too many of these prologues, but I do need to set up the story in various places before things start coming together, so expect a couple more in the meantime. Please enjoy.

Prologue II: "One Who Understands Another"

**Unknown area...**

It was hard to say just where she was at the moment. Rita Mordio, the genius mage of Aspio, was with Flynn before she had found herself engulfed in that weird light from the crystal coffin-like object the Imperial Knights had discovered. She still wasn't sure what it had been exactly, but her primary concern was where she was transported. Rita had awakened, head throbbing, in a rainbow-colored void of some kind. She hadn't the faintest idea where it was or what the void was even supposed to be, but the numerous iridescent colors made her eyes spin. On top of that, she could walk as if she had been on solid ground, despite it looked like she was in midair. It was all too much to take in.

At least she hadn't come alone, as the crystal coffin object had not only brought her to the strange new location, but also came with her. Or rather, perhaps it came here and dragged her along with it. It was hard to say...

_But wouldn't that make it alive somehow?_ _That metal sphere might be a living creature of some kind that only looks like a machine._ Rita mused, trying to come up with some kind of working hypothesis. It always bothered her when she couldn't make heads or tails of new discoveries. Still, this "new discovery" was responsible for hurtling her to some weird place and separating her from Flynn all together. She wasn't sure what she should do to get out of her predicament. _I wonder, maybe if I hit this thing with a spell arte_, _it could send me back. Ugh, stupid thing, just where in the heck did you send me anyway?!_

Rita then turned to look angrily at the object and starting preparing magic, which came as a shock to her initially when she tested it out earlier upon waking in the mysterious void. Somehow her blastia was functioning here, something that shouldn't be at all possible, since defeating the Adephagos back in her world required sacrificing the energy in all of Terca Lumireis's blastia in order to annihilate it. Whether it might have had something to do with either being in contact with the crystal coffin or being in the void didn't concern her, she just wanted to go back home. She could think about it later, in the comfort of familiar surroundings.

"Damage Magna Quartz in any way, and I will make you pay for it," a voice suddenly spoke. Rita got spooked and stopped her incantation.

"Who's there?!" She demanded, looking around, trying to find the source of the voice. All she could see in any direction was void, void and more void. Looking at all the numerous colors in such rapid swerves was bringing on a wave of nausea she didn't need. "Damn it, who are you?!" Rita screamed.

"I am..." Swirling traces of blue energy began forming near Magna Quartz and took the form of something humanoid, but the silhouette quickly adopted an unusual shape. It became roundish in the back, like some sort of shell, and the head grew two small stalks pointing upward. "...Crystal Snail."

"What the..." Rita now had another shock to add to her expanding list.

**Energen Crystal Mine...**

Rita wasn't the only one getting an eyeful of surprises today. It was enough that the Hunters were dealing with a foe who was originally part of the 6th Naval Unit, but now they had unexpected help from a friend among a very large group whom they had traveled with across numerous worlds and dimensions previously.

"I don't believe it. Flynn, what are you doing here?" X was flabbergasted.

"Maybe we should deal with these foes first before we start chatting!" The dutiful knight declared as he slashed his sword through a couple of enemy Reploids who were trying to attack him.

"What's this? You Hunters have help...from a human?! Haha, that's rich!" Amblygonite Hydra's first head laughed rather insanely at the very notion.

"Hmph. You idiot," Zero said, as he regained his stance after having been hit by Hydra's surprise attack from earlier. "I'd advise you not to underestimate this particular human."

"What?" The second head, Two, got a good look at Flynn, wondering just what the big deal was with him. "Feh, I don't see what's so special about him."

"That's your problem. You're only seeing. He's one of many humans trained in powerful fighting styles and we've witnessed his abilities firsthand. He can rip Mavericks apart just as well as any Hunter can. You'd do well to remember that." Zero pointed his Z-Saber at the Maverick with his usual poker face. X realized that his good friend and partner was trying to shift the fight in their favor with a combination of psychological tactics and outright intimidation. He decided to follow up with his own clever words.

"Yes Hydra, Zero isn't lying. He knocked you and your troops aside easily. Do you really think he can't handle you if he's capable of doing that in just one strike?" The Maverick Hunter said, hoping this would buy enough time until the backup arrived. Hydra, surprisingly, was humbled by the facts being given and did recall feeling an intense bit of force from the vacuum wave that interrupted him. Of course, like any Maverick prone to violence, he didn't want to accept the fact a human was strong enough to do such a thing, much less a human doing such a thing at all.

"Damn it, it doesn't matter! If you want to die alongside the Hunters so badly, then so be it! I'll be happy to send you to your death!" Hydra's heads turned to look at Flynn and hiss monstrously at the Imperial Knight. In response, the blonde-haired swordsman leapt over to X and Zero's position and readied himself.

"You won't have to worry about any further reinforcements. I took care of the problem once I realized what they were heading here from the other room." Flynn said to them as he began chanting First Aid to heal the injured Reploids.

"Other room? I see, so he was getting backup from a different section. This cave isn't as sealed up as we believed, X." Zero mused as the light of Flynn's arte recovered the damaged area.

"Yeah..." X thought back to the past again. All that kept surfacing in his mind was images of Crystal Snail's death, playing over and over again like some horrid torture video. He had been terrified of dying then, and out of fear he completely annihilated his opponent when he was just trying to understand him.

_If only it could have been different. If only I could have..._

"X, be careful!" Flynn's voice alerted him to Hydra's approach.

_Damn, I can't afford to be distracted right now!_

At that moment, a standoff between the four combatants in the cavern was inevitable. Buster, beam saber and knight sword drawn on one side, seven snapping and hissing heads on the other. In one fluid movement, they clashed too quickly for any observer to see.

**Unknown area...**

The initial shock of Crystal Snail's appearance had passed Rita's mind quickly enough. She'd seen plenty of unusual beings in her own world. Still, she had never seen anything or anyone quite like him. She recalled Yuri, Estelle and Flynn mention the large group of people they had traveled with when they had suddenly vanished from Halure one day out of the blue. There were two among that team who were called Reploids, and they were people built to look like humans, but were made of metal. Rita found that hard to believe at first back then. However, looking upon Crystal Snail, her doubts were washing away rather quickly.

Crystal Snail looked at the human girl who had dared to get it into her head to attack Magna Quartz. He kept himself close to his precious friend, caressing it as he had once before when he was "alive". Though he was elated to finally be with Magna Quartz somewhere they would never be bothered, he kept wary of Rita, wondering how she had even ended up here. He was also surprised someone else would even manage to find their "secret world" like this. What could have happened?

"Um, excuse me, Crystal Snail? May I ask you something?" Rita chimed in.

"What is it?" He remained wary of her.

"I wasn't trying to hurt Magna Quartz. I was just...frustrated at my situation. I don't know where I am right now and how to get back. You see, it was because of that crystal that I ended up here in the first place from my world." She explained. Her words surprised Snail; he hadn't considered that Quartz could be responsible, especially when he recalled his precious friend vanished some time ago and suddenly returned. He had assumed that his crystalline companion had been sent around by the void's power to a random location nearby, not in another world of all places.

"So you're from another realm too? Magna Quartz and I are not originally from here either. Tell me then, who are you and what world do you hail from? Is it Earth?"

"I'm Rita Mordio, and I'm not from Earth. I come from a world called Terca Lumireis. Magna Quartz was the one who brought me here. You see, it was found in a cavern in my world that consists entirely of similar-looking crystals. A friend of mine and I were called in to investigate it, but just as we were simply standing around making inquiries and theories, a huge flash of light erupted from the crystal...and I found myself here afterward."

Crystal Snail took some time to soak up Rita's story and was quite shocked that his dear beautiful Quartz could even do such a thing. He had no idea his friend had that level of power. The mollusk Reploid mulled it over for a while and could tell the girl was not hostile nor was she trying to hurt Magna Quartz. He realized that his wariness was a product of the paranoia he felt when he felt himself to be nothing more than an ugly creature back on Earth.

"Actually, I...knew what it's like not to have anyone else. I used to keep myself locked away in my house with only my blastia. I didn't trust others either, because they misused blastia and hurt them to make things work for them." Rita said, almost with no thought as to why she was telling this newfound stranger anything about her personal life. Her words surprised Snail, who listened carefully. "One day, a certain person wanted to be my friend and everything changed. She was genuinely the first person to ever care about what I thought or how I felt. Another human being actually cared about me and that's when my life changed. I journeyed with her and her friends, and she helped me realize that shutting myself away wasn't the the best use of my time. I met all kinds of kooks and weirdos along the way," Rita's expression changed as she said this, "but I would never have seen the rest of the world if I'd just remained locked away in Aspio. It's still hard to trust some kinds of people out there, but being mistrustful all the time is...painful."

Crystal Snail sensed the sincerity in the human's words. They echoed his own situation quite well. He knew what he had been like back on Earth: a recluse, a hermit, unable to care about anything other than Magna Quartz and only capable of becoming concerned about anything when it involved his precious friend. The mollusk Reploid knew he had to face this dark side of himself at some point, otherwise he felt he would never be worthy of being Quartz's protector.

"It seems we are kindred spirits in that sense, Rita Mordio. I too was alone in the world. I hated my own ugliness, and I was unable to see past it. Magna Quartz was all I had and the only one who truly represented what little beauty I could see in my existence. I wanted nothing else...and no one else. But one day, I lost my good friend and I gave in to my despair. I died that day..." Snail sighed at length, thinking back to the day Maverick Hunter X appeared and brought an end to his life after shattering the crystalline defense unit. "Somehow, what remained of my 'soul', if you can say Reploids have such a thing, was guided here by something. I know not what, but Quartz was brought here too and I was happy to see my friend. Since then, we have spent our eternity here together." He again caressed his companion, taking comfort in the fact that he was not alone in such a strange dimension.

Rita realized the two of them indeed were very alike, but at least she had had her eyes opened by Estelle. Snail, on the other hand, had spent his existence torturing himself with thoughts of being ugly, despite the warmth he derived from his contact with Magna Quartz. She felt as if she should do something to help, but she wasn't sure exactly what her plan was at the moment.

_Great, I'm turning into Estelle._ She thought to herself with her arms crossed. "I think we should try to find a way to get out of here."

"A way out?" Snail looked at her with astonishment. "I've been trying for the longest time to see if this void has an exit of some kind leading to somewhere else, but alas, it all looks the same."

"How about if we can get Magna Quartz to help us escape. It is has the power to transport between worlds, right?"

"After what you've told me so far, it would appear so, but what triggers the warp?"

"That's...the part I don't quite know yet." Rita admitted she was stumped at the moment. She had no idea what had caused the large crystal to react the way it did back in the Erealumen Crystallands cavern. She recalled the metal orb encased within the gigantic crystal and how its red central "eye" bended light in such an unusual way. "I think it had something to do with that." As the mage of Aspio pointed at the spherical mechanism that governed the control of the crystal itself, she walked toward it and squinted to get a better look inside. Snail observed with her, and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"That is simply the core processing device that handles all of its functions, Rita. Its similar to a brain, essentially."

"Ah I see, but I wonder what caused it to..." Before Rita could finish her sentence, an all-too familiar sound began to stir.

"Dear friend, what is it?" Crystal Snail asked, putting his hand on the crystal before a blinding white light engulfed everything.

**Terca Lumireis, in the imperial capital of Zaphias...**

Brave Vesperia, along with the Imperial Knights, had been in a tizzy trying to figure out what had happened to Rita and Flynn. When the news had been brought back by Joshua Crim and the survey team, it shocked everyone, particularly Yuri and Estelle. They were gripped with the fear that the Portalstone was out of control again.

"But Yuri," Estelle started as she reviewed the report Joshua brought back, "how could it be the Portalstone when it was that weird crystal that transported them away?"

"Did you forget about how water was behaving the same as gateways when the stone was dispersing all the worlds' boundaries, like the fountain at Mii's mansion?" Yuri said as he took his seat at the large round table everyone was present at as they wondered what they could do. "It's possible the Portalstone could affect solid objects too.

"Even if we knew where that big crystal took them, how would we even follow them?" Karol, the twelve year old appointed boss of Brave Vesperia, spoke up.

"He's right. For starters, there's just no tellin' where they could have been whisked away too." Raven, the sleepy-eyed "old man", said as he put his chin on his hand. "It's not like we have any way of knowing just which world they were flung to, or if both of them even ended up in the same one."

"Considering how many different places you and Estelle were thrown around to during that whole escapade, and the possibility there are countless other worlds you hadn't yet seen, finding them by guessing alone is going to be impossible." Judith, the Krityan who was always one to make witty quips in even the most unique circumstances, stated as she folded her arms. From outside the building, the party could hear Ba'ul making a low almost distressed croon. "Ba'ul is worried about them."

Repede, Yuri's trusted canine companion, whined his concern too.

"We all are. Flynn and Rita are members of Brave Vesperia, and we can't just let this slide without first figuring out a way to help them." Yuri said resolutely. Just then the door opened with a slam; at the entrance was one of the knights.

"Princess Estellise, there's something you need to see!" He said, panic apparent in his tone.

"What is it?" She rose to her feet and immediately went outside, the rest of the team hot on her heels. The knight guided them to the upper quarter of the capital where a crowd of people had been gathered around someone. Shouts of "He just suddenly appeared!" and "There was this big flash of light!" rose above the murmurs and mutters of the citizens.

"Everyone, please make way for Princess Estellise!" Some of the knights who had been patrolling the walkway where everyone was trying to get a look announced so the people could make some room for Brave Vesperia. When the heroes of Terca Lumireis got a gander at just what warranted the eyes and ears of so many of the townspeople, they were taken aback to say the least. Sitting on the ground before them was a humanoid snail of some kind, made entirely of a metal that was not identifiable to anyone.

"Yuri, doesn't he remind you of...?" Estelle was about to say, but Yuri crouched down almost immediately to look at the newcomer more closely.

"You're a Reploid aren't you? Like X and Zero?"

"Yes I am. But this isn't Earth, is it?" Crystal Snail asked.

To be continued...


End file.
